NACHO MAN

I like to think (perhaps mistakenly) that I have a good understanding of human psychology, but just yesterday, watching a cinema relay of Wagner's Die Walküre from the Royal Opera for the second time, I found my comprehension shattered like Siegmund's sword in Act 2, as a man in an ill-fitting pink shirt watched the "lynchpin of Western civilisation" whilst he set about devouring a box of nachos with the type of crunching sound one might expect from a T-Rex in Jurassic Park, his mouth repeatedly filled like an overstuffed wood chipper.

Along with the seemingly endless crunching was the distinct smell of tomato salsa and gloopy melted cheese that reminded me of a teenager's funky socks that haven't been washed in days. It's perhaps ironic for an opera that has so much drama that Act One of Walküre, especially, is so relatively quiet—for Wagner. The hope of immersing myself in the domestic tension of Hunding's forest hut was all but initially ruined by the sound of a man's mouth who (would you believe) was louder than the 90-plus orchestra playing their hearts out in the orchestra pit. And if I didn't know any better I might have believed the man to have had an amplification system fitted in his jaw, so loud was his mastication.

Having already moved from one aisle to another after an elderly woman sat behind me with a seemingly disconnected jaw that made strange alien sounds like a small fish trying to suck a giant gobstopper whilst gasping for air on land, I was already finding the afternoon crowd to be more problematic than I imagine watching Minecraft: The Movie with all the kids on their half term holiday.

As for Nacho Man, I could have forgiven him if he were sat at the Yankee Stadium watching the baseball, but not at a timeless masterwork like Der Ring des Nibelungen. I half-fantasised, in a Purple Rose of Cairo type of way, for Siegmund or Hunding to break the fourth wall of the screen and yell "What the hell are you doing, man?" or dive into Row B and grab him by the scruff of the collar and shake the debris of crisps off his pink-shirted paunch.

Eventually I worked out—in a sort of messy science—that the rate at which the nachos were entering his gob and being broken down and swallowed meant the box would soon be finished, by which time he should be sated like Fafner the Dragon with his hoard of gold.

My calculation basically correct, I ignored the pungent aroma of coagulating processed cheese in the air as I tried to focus on the events in the opera, but then, out of the corner of my eye, I could see the same man searching for something beneath his feet. What was he looking for? The Rhinegold? With half his ass visible (thanks to the overhead lighting in the cinema), he began his deep search beneath his polyurethane seat like a man possessed. Surely he wasn't looking for some nachos he’d spilled in the hope he could have a few more bites? Was he really that hungry?

Perhaps he'd lost his credit card? I had no idea.

So now, from the crunching to the man's frenzied hunt, I was finding it almost impossible to focus on the unfolding drama in the realm of the mortals. Instead, I found myself absorbed in the all-too-mortal realm of the cinema itself, where it became abundantly clear that the class divide between attending an actual opera house and watching one in a cinema was truly a colossal gulf.

Surely this wasn't what Wagner had in mind when he designed and built Bayreuth—his ideal theatre to perform his works.

Taking a break after Act One, I glanced past the man's seat, which was a riot of nacho dust and greasy spots of dripped cheese. This man was in no fit state to be watching an opera in a cinema. I considered an intervention. Maybe call the police or a mental health unit to have him arrested or sectioned.

Returning for Act 2, and having involved the cinema manager in his search for whatever he'd dropped beneath the seat, the man brought no more snacks with him—which was a relief—but, strangely, upped and left twenty minutes into the longest act of the three-act opera. Perhaps he had a condition where he couldn't concentrate on an opera without filling his face with nachos. Or perhaps he didn't like the production, with its naked octogenarian Erda ever-present. Maybe he was a psycho who went between each screen, one nacho box at a time. Was this his kink? An anti-social menace who actively enjoys ruining people's entertainment.

Either way, once he'd departed, I was free to return to the mythical music drama and forget the stinky cheese and relentless crunching. Still, like a phantom limb, I thought I could still hear him long after he'd left the auditorium. Was this psycho cruncher now set to haunt me forevermore like the Flying Dutchman of cinema concessions.

Don't laugh!

He may be coming to a cinema near you.

Look out for him—"Nacho Man".